Saturday Service | Poster girl for neuroplasticity

This week’s service is by Haley Peckham, poster girl for neuroplasticity. Her story begins with ordinary, yet tragic miscommunication, journeys through self-harming and feeling crazy but not seeing herself as mentally ill, then having really successful psychotherapy. Her story, or at least the telling of it, ends with her becoming a molecular neuroscientist and realising that her super neuroplastic brain and body had adapted in meaningful ways to the experiences she had, for better and for worse.

Kiri and Haley invite a conversation exploring how early experiences biologically shape our anticipations of love and the world, and what happens to us if the meaning of experiences that hurt us is lost and confounded by diagnosis, begging the questions, "Why are you diagnosing something wrong with me when what happened to me was the thing that was wrong?" And "Please can I have some healing experiences of warmth, validation, trust and connection to re shape my adaptive brain so that I can anticipate a kinder safer future?"